Sigur Rós

Offscreen Approach

To redesign a vinyl cover for the album Takk... by the Icelandic band Sigur Rós.

Tools used:

Acrylics paint, Illustrator, Photoshop, Procreate

Concept work for a student project.

Design Outcome

For someone who is new to the band to get excited about the music
To bring the vastness of Icelandic landscape in front of the listeners
Tone of voice: dreamy, magical, natural

Target Audience

People who are into Icelandic music with classical and minimal aesthetic elements.

Behind-the-Scenes

Describing their music is difficult. The soothing falsetto vocals have a magic of their own. In the playlist where you have all the psychedelic and post rock songs, this band’s music fits in perfectly. Their compositions have a very beautiful amalgamation of all the instruments and the cumulative impact is better felt than explained.

When I listened to this album for the first time, I was really struck by the nostalgic sense of freedom - as if going back to the childhood and running up and down the mountains in my hometown. This is the feeling I want someone to feel when they lay their eyes on the cover of the album.

One thing that really stuck in my mind when I first listened to their songs from a documentary about their homecoming tour, was this image of a variantly red kite flying against the cloudless blue sky, with the Icelandic plateau in the backdrop and that was where I got the inspiration from.

Initially I was experimenting with the paper-cut route but in the end decided to use acrylics to paint the backdrop, and used real natural elements like twigs and flowers that I picked up from the neighbourhoods (spring was coming!) to bring out the 3D effect instead. The combination of painting which is a medium that I like to work with and real-life objects that I encountered while brainstorming for ideas for this project felt both personal and yet a part of the larger ongoing conversation with the mother nature. It is an invitation for the users to fill in the gaps themselves.